Auxiliary furniture spring



July 15, 1958 w. G. REGAN 2,843,191

' AUXILIARY FURNITURE SPRING Filed June 26, 1956 I 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVEN TOR.

William G. Regan By AT ORNEY July 15, 1958 w. G. REGAN 2,843,191

AUXILIARY FURNITURE SPRING Filed June 26, 1956 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 IN V ENTOR.

William 6. Regan 5 7 42 BY 74 l T ORNEY United States Patent AUXILIARYFURNITURE SPRING William G. Regan, Shrewsbury, Mass., assignor to KayManufacturing Corporation, Brooklyn, N. Y., a corporation of New YorkApplication June 26, 1956, Serial No. 594,060

10 Claims. (Cl. 155-179) This invention relates to auxiliary springs forupholstered furniture and particularly to springs supplementing thebowed sinuous springs and useable at the edges of an upholstered seat orback.

Where the side edge of a seat or back is exposed and unprotected by armsor projecting sides on the furniture, some means are required to producea soft springy or cushioned side edge portion. The auxiliary springscustomarily used at the exposed front edgeof the seat or top edge of theback are unsuitable because they cannot be effectively or economicallysecured to the adjacent main sinuous spring which they are intended toaid or supplement.

The present invention therefore contemplates the provision of a sideedge spring which is efiicient in operation, which may quickly andeasily be secured to the adjacent main sinuous spring and which may beeconomically produced from available sinuous wire spring stock.

The invention further contemplates the provision. of an auxiliary sidespring of sinuous wire spring material having two spaced apart andsimilar sinuous end portions each provided with transverse crossbars,and a connecting sinuous portion having similar crossbars perpendicularto the crossbars of the end portions thereby to arrange at least one ofthe crossbars of the connecting portion in a position wherein it iscoextensive with a crossbar of the main sinuous spring, so that saidcrossbars may be efficiently and durably clipped together and theauxiliary spring secured to the main spring as well as to a border wireor frame or both.

The various objects of the invention will be clear from the descriptionwhich follows and from the drawings, in which Fig. l is a top plan viewofone form of the auxiliary side spring as it appears attached to theside of a border wire and to the adjacent main sinuous spring of a seator back, showing that side of the furniture frame below the border wire.

Fig. 2 is a side elevational view thereof.

Fig. 3 is a vertical sectional view thereof taken on the line 3-3 ofFig. 2.

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of the side spring.

Fig. 5 isa plan view similar to Fig. 1 of a modified form of the sidespring.

Fig. 6 is a side elevational view thereof.

Fig. 7 is a vertical sectional view thereof taken on the line 7-7 ofFig. 6.

Fig. 8 is a perspective view of the side spring.

Fig. 9 is a view similar to Fig. 7 of another modified form of the sidespring in which the connecting portion has only one upright bend orloop.

As illustrated in Figs. l-4, the side portion 10 of the border wire isarranged in sufficiently lateral spaced relation to the furniture frame11 to permit the spring structure to yield properly as is wellunderstood. Said border wire portion 10 preferably slopes downwardlyfrom front to back when used in a seat and is yieldingly ice supportedby the auxiliary side spring 12 extending between and secured to theportion 10 and to the adjacent main sinuous spring 13, whereby pressureon the side edge of the seat or back is in part transmitted to the mainspring and in part absorbed by the auxiliary side spring;

Said side spring 12 comprises two similar and substan tially paralleland coplanar sinuous end portions 14 and 15, and a sinuous intermediateconnecting portion 16 joining the inner ends of the end portions. Theaxis or longitudinal center line of the connecting portion 16 isperpendicular to the axes or longitudinal center lines of the endportions 14 and 15. As shown, said portion 16' comprises foursubstantially parallel crossbars as 17,, 18, 19 and 20 joined by therespective 180 bends 21, Hand 23, the bars and bends being preferablysubstantially identical with those of the main spring 13, whereby the.portion 16 is coextensive or registers with a section of the main springwhen arranged thereunder as shown in Figs. 1-3. At each end thereof theconnecting portion is joined to the adjacent end portion by a bend as 24for the portion 14 and 25 for the portion 15. Said bend is easily formedby partly unbending one of the bends of an untempered length of the samesinuous spring formation or stock as forms the main spring.

Since such spring stock is normally arched or bowed, the are orcurvature may be retained, increased or diminished as desired to givethe required concavity to the end portions. Said end portions 14 and 15are arranged in such positions that the arc is concave upwardly oropposite to the bow or are of the main spring as best seen in Fig. 3.Each of said sinuous end portions has as many bends and crossbars as arerequired to bridge the space between the main springand the border wire,three bends being illustrated. The outermost or terminal crossbar 30 ofthe end portion 14 is secured to and preferably under the border wire 10as by means of the clip 31. However, the crossbar 30 while parallel andin contact with the border wire may be arranged at the top if founddesirable or convenient. The similar crossbar 32 of the other endportion 15 is similarly secured to the border wire by means of the clip33. The auxiliary spring is so arranged that the end crossbar 17 of theconnecting portion 16 is underneath or above or otherwise registers withone of the crossbars as 34 of the adjacent main spring and therefore mayconveniently be connected thereto by the clip 35. Similarly, thecrossbar 20 at the other end of the portion 16 registers with thecrossbar 37 of the main spring and is similarly connected thereto by theclip 38. The entire connecting portion 16 is thereby preferably inregistration with a section of the main sinuous spring 13.

Forces exerted upon the border wire and adjacent parts of the springstructure are transmitted to the main spring by the auxiliary spring andfinally transferred to the frame 11, the end crossbars of said mainspring being secured to the frame by suitable clips as 39in the usualmanner. The side spring resists downward movement and urges the borderwire toward its uppermost position ina seat, to form a yieldable sideedge thereon or on the back when, there used.

In that form of the invention shown in Figs. 5-8, the sinuous endportions 40 and 41 of the side spring 42 are arranged in a seat oneabove the other in vertical alignment and with the correspondingcrossbars thereof substantially parallel. However, owing to the arch ofthe sinuous spring stock from which the side spring is made and for thepurpose of arranging the terminal crossbar of the end portion at theproper height above the sinuous main spring, the upper end portion 40 isor may be made slightly concave upwardly while the lower end portion 41is slightly concave downwardly as best seen in Fig. 7. The sinuousconnecting portion 43 is joined to the end portions 40 and 41 by therespective right angle bends 44 and 45 at the ends of the connectingportion. Said bends arrange said connecting portion in a substantiallyvertical plane instead of the horizontal plane in which the connectingportion of the side spring 12 is arranged. The uppermost crossbar 46 ofthe connection portion 43 is secured to a parallel and coextensivecrossbar 47 of the main spring as by the clip 48. The terminal crossbar49 of the upper end portion is secured to the border wire by means ofthe clip 50 and the terminal crossbar 51 of the lower end portion 41 issecured to the frame 11 by means of the clip 52. Three bends 53, 54 and55 are shown in the connecting portion and four transverse crossbars.

However, as shown in Fig. 9, where the vertical distance between theborder wire and the frame is reduced, asingle bend 56 and two crossbars57, 58 form the connecting portion. In this form of the side spring,part of the stress upon the border wire and the adjacent areas of thespring structure, not absorbed by the side spring, is passed to the mainspring and part directly to the frame. It will be seen that in all formsof the invention, the side spring may be economically manufactured ofthe well known sinuous spring stock to provide two end portions and anintermediate connecting portion having a center line or axisperpendicular to the axes of the end portions, the connecting portionbeing joined by a right angle bend to the adjacent end portion, aterminal crossbar of at least one of the end portions registering withthe border wire and the end crossbar of the intermediate portionregistering with a crossbar of the main spring whereby the auxiliaryside spring may be conveniently and inexpensively secured in place.

While certain specific forms of the invention have herein been shown anddescribed, various obvious changes may be made therein without departingfrom the spirit of the invention defined by the appended claims.

I claim:

1. An auxiliary side spring adapted to be interposed between a sinuousmain spring and a border wire in a spring structure for upholsteredfurniture, said side spring comprising a pair of similar spaced apartsinuous end portions each having a plurality of substantially paralleltransverse crossbars joined by substantially 180 bends, the crossbars ofone end portion being substantially parallel to the crossbars of theother end portion, a sinuous intermediate connecting portion having aplurality of crossbars joined by bends and perpendicular to thecrossbars of the end portions, and a right angle bend at each end of theintermediate connecting portion joining the end crossbar of saidintermediate portion to a crossbar of the adjacent end portion.

2..The side spring of claim 1, the end portions being spaced aparthorizontally and being concave outwardly, and the intermediateconnecting portion being in a horizontal plane.

3. The side spring of claim 1, the end portions being spaced apartvertically, and the intermediate connecting portion being in a verticalplane.

'4. A sinuous auxiliary side spring having crossbars joined, bysubstantially 180 bends, and having two 90 bends intermediate the endsthereof arranging the crossbars between the bends at an angle ofsubstantially 90 4 to the remaining crossbars, the end portions of thespring beyond the bends being bowed concavely upwardly and spaced aparthorizontally, and the intermediate portion of the spring between the 90bends being substantially horizontal.

5. A sinuous auxiliary side spring having crossbars joined bysubstantially bends, and having two 90 bends intermediate the endsthereof arranging the crossbars between the bends at an angle ofsubstantially 90 to the remaining crossbars, the crossbars and 180 bendsbetween the 90 bends being arranged in a substantially vertical plane.

6. The side spring of claim 5, one end portion of the spring beyond one90 bend being bowed concavely upwardly and the other end portion beyondthe other 90 bend being bowed concavely downwardly and being spaceddownwardly from said one end portion.

7. A spring structure for upholstered furniture comprising a sinuousmain spring having transverse crossbars and bends joining the crossbars,a border wire above and spaced transversely from the main spring, anauxiliary sinuous side spring having a pair of spaced apart end portionseach comprising a plurality of crossbars parallel to the border wire andperpendicular to the crossbars of the main spring and approximately 180bends joining the crossbars of the end portion, a terminal crossbar ofan end portion being parallel to and secured to the border wire, theremaining crossbars and bends of the end portion bridging the spacebetween the border wire and the main spring, an intermediate portionjoined by 90 bends to the respective end portions and having a pluralityof crossbars parallel to the crossbars of the main spring, at least oneof the crossbars of the intermediate portion being coextensive with andoverlapping a crossbar of the main spring and a clip securing said onecrossbar of the intermediate portion to the overlapped crossbar of themain spring.

8. The spring structure of claim 7, the end portions being spaced aparthorizontally and the crossbars of the intermediate portion beingcoextensive with and registering with a corresponding part of the mainspring.

9. The spring structure of claim 7, the end portions being spaced apartvertically, a frame, and means connecting the terminal crossbar of thelower of. the end portions to the frame.

10. An auxiliary side spring adapted to be interposed between a sinuousmain spring, the border wire and the frame in a spring construction forupholstered furniture, said side spring comprising an upper sinuous endportion adapted to be secured to the border wire and to bridge the spacebetween the border wire and the main spring, an intermediatesubstantially upright sinuous portion adapted to be secured to the mainspring, and a lower sinuous portion adapted to be secured to the frameand to extend inwardly from the frame in the same general direction asthe upper end portion.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS

